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Comment by maxheadroom | Hacker News Reader

>The I-Team wanted to know how much of that money came from marketing firms, but the agency in charge of driver information estimated it would take 154 hours of research and cost nearly $3,000 for the state to give taxpayers an answer.

I'm no rocket scientist but $3,000 (USD) is less than $77M (USD), yeah?

>That’s because Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles said companies buying data on Floridians are not allowed to use that information for marketing.

What did they expect it to be used for? Genealogy reports? /s

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Claiming it's not used for marketing is blatant newspeak. I'll try and explain what they mean. This sort of data is frequently used by trading firms to try and get a more accurate picture of how auto-companies are doing, or the local economies. Insurance firms also use this data. Experian and Equifax almost definitely use it too.

The data is terrifyingly granular, most DMVs do this. The company which I currently work for, has a database of all the currently registered cars, with their owners addresses and ages in America.

While not used in marketing that you see, it's used in aggregate market analytics.

Thanks, that makes more sense of what kind of data this is for. Still annoying that the DMV doesn't notify you about it up front, or have an opt-out from the start.

>>That’s because Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles said companies buying data on Floridians are not allowed to use that information for marketing.

>What did they expect it to be used for? Genealogy reports? /s

When I worked in government, the forms for FOIA requests always had a disclaimer they couldn't be used for marketing, but the laws were never enforced at all and thus widely abused. The only way to really fix this is to enforce laws, and given that currently those in power to enforce laws can selectively choose which laws to enforce, justice will never be the result.

The only fixes I can think of that aren't band-aids only covering the symptoms are drastic enough changes that I doubt those currently comfortable have the stomach for them.

Definitely the two most disturbing quotes from the article. They're admitting that citizens' data has been sold to so many companies that it's going to take 154 hours of research just to figure out which companies it was sold to.

> What did they expect it to be used for? Genealogy reports? /s

Serious answer, but I'd guess background checks and such?

> background checks

Without explicit consent from the person being checked? That still seems to be a privacy violation to me.

Well, with Republican state governments cutting all traditional income means (read: taxes) how else are they to afford to run?

This is 77m dollars. Yeah its horrible that your data is being sold. But there's no privacy amendment in the USA. And state budgets are suffering.

Seems like raising taxes and voting better people would go quite a ways to stopping these practices from becoming normalized.

(Edit: for those of you who've -1'ed me, it represents the same game theory that plays out in the electorate for those states. Most states are run by Republicans - fact. Any politicians, primarily Democrats, whom suggests higher taxation are blackballed. Nobody wants higher taxes. Yet, the states can't print money, but still need it. This is how we get into these situations. Game theory 101.

And the -1's, show that. Because, how dare I suggest raising taxes and making these crooked uses of information=>money exfiltration illegal.)

USA does have a privacy amendment, the 4th amendment. Concisely summarized here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_and_seizure#United_Stat...

This comment makes no sense because the Fourth doesn't apply to data/information that you've surrendered to the DMV and that the DMV owns.

Precisely from the same Wiki article that you linked: "...courts have found that a person does not possess a reasonable expectation of privacy in information transferred to a third party...".

So, the right "...to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures..." doesn't apply, here, whatsoever. The reason that the DMV can sell the data is a direct effect of the fact that they own the data that you've surrendered for the privilege of driving.

In order for your reference to have any standing, jurisprudence must first be reversed and that seems a dauntingly monumental and nigh-impossible task.

It doesn't mean or infer that I think it's a "good" thing (hint: I do not) but to simply dismiss it as being protected by the fourth negates the very premise that has already been established that it isn't (as in this case, with the DMV).

The comment you failed to make sense of makes a specific correction to a specific false statement. The U.S. does in fact have constitutional protection of privacy.

You seem to want to discuss the applicability of that protection to this specific situation. I'm not especially interested in doing that. But I will supply the part of the quote you elided: "transferred to a third party, such as writing on the outside of an envelope sent through the mail or left for pick-up in an area where others might view it"

If you want to argue that giving info to the DMV is analagous to writing on the outside of an envelope, feel free. I was only interested in correcting the common misconception that the constitution doesn't say anything about privacy.

Why would that be without explicit consent?

I worked for a company that had Florida (and other state) DMV data and that's exactly what we did.

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